Every Tuesday I put my red recycling bin out on the curb. It's always so full it's spilling over into whatever other containers I can muster. But when I look around, I'm the only person on my street putting out a bin. My neighborhood overall doesn't have many recyclers either. It's so easy, I couldn't understand what was going on. So I went straight to the head of the neighborhood association. Here is his response:
"Folks don’t want to pay for it to be picked up."
Recycling in my town costs $5 a month. 5 smackers. Trash pick up is completely free, so it's not as if the $5 fee is on top of a large monthly trash bill. But free trash does send a clear message: why conserve? Throw it away. It's free!
I tried to talk the neighborhood association into doing a recycling fundraiser-- starting with something simple like aluminum cans-- because they're always trying to raise money for projects. They passed.
I know I'm the young person in a neighborhood of older people, but is there really a recycling generation gap?
1 comment:
Yes, unfortunately there is a generation gap, as well as regional attitudes. An unnamed relative of mine (a Houstonian) "doesn't believe in recycling". Huh? When I lived in Houston I would only see about a third of my neighbors using the recycling bins, and trash pickup was TWICE a week!
Here in Portland we each get two bins, a trash can, and a yard debris can (or paper bag). Trash and recycling get picked up once a week, and you pay more if you want a bigger trash can. They're even talking about going to bi-weekly trash pickup once they start recycling food waste.
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